MarKr wrote:The damage system in CoH is more complex than just subtracting damage value from HP pool. Basically, if you penetrate a unit and deal some damage, there is always some kind of critical applied on the target. But one of the criticals is als "no critical" - this one does not damage cannon, engine or anything, it only subtracts damage value from HP (and in this where the minimum and maximum damage values are applied). This type of "critical" you get most often. The others (engine damaged/destroyed/detracked etc.) deal the 1HP damage but apply those additional effects.

I described it wrong - the shot can deal normal damage + disable cannon/engine etc, but sometimes they deal a lot less damage when a crit is rolled, this happens mostly if the tank was damaged before, and it is because you cannot score 2 crits with 1 shots. In the game many people think that 0HP = vehicle destroyed, but "destroyed vehicle" is just another "crit" that needs to be triggered. How and when each crit type triggers is more complicated but if a situation occurs where a tank has, let's say less than 50% HP, is hit by something that would normally take away 3/4 of the target's HP, it is possible that the hit activates e.g. "cannon destroyed" crit and it cannot activate another crit (the one that destroys the tank) so instead of destroying the tank, it remains alive with destroyed cannon and very little HP even when normal subtracting damage from HP would result in "negative HP".